During their prime, the ALRVs were used to provide all day service on route 501 Queen as well as some weekday peak service on routes 504 King and 508 Lake Shore. They also provided service on route 511 Bathurst all Saturday and Sunday in the summer and during events along that line. As their ranks have decreased, it is unlikely that ALRVs will operate elsewhere than on route 501 Queen in the future.

Contents

History

A prototype and demonstrator, numbered 4900, was produced by the Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC) in 1982. Unlike the production cars, 4900 was built with a pantograph, flip-dot destination sign, and hand controls. It was loaned to the TTC for testing from the summer of 1982 to the winter of 1983. After in-service trials, the car was put into storage and eventually returned to UTDC in 1987. The car was later scrapped following an accident at their plant with a production vehicle.

The articulated vehicle proved useful on the TTC's busiest streetcar routes. The Commission ordered 52 ALRVs at a cost of approximately $1.4 million each. The first car was delivered on June 11, 1987 and entered service on the route 507 Long Branch on January 19, 1988.[1]

Modifications & refurbishment

By the early 2000s, the red vinyl seat inserts were replaced with ones covered in synthetic wool. Beginning in 2009, the surface stop announcement system and driver barriers were installed. Throughout 2014, the first three seats on the open side of the streetcar received blue inserts as part of a fleet-wide modification to better denote courtesy seating. The TTC committed to having Presto payment available on all streetcars by the end of 2015. As of June 2015, one car (4221) was fitted with Presto readers as a trial. By September, installation commenced on the remainder of the fleet.

Over the course of five years, beginning in 2008, the ALRVs went through their mid-life overhaul. The first car completed was 4220, which had been sidelined at Harvey Shops three years prior. It was outshopped in April 2010. The cars received new stepwells, an updated instrument panel, new coat of paint, and LED exterior lighting. Only the headlight remained incandescent, however 4240 received an LED headlight with backlit TTC logo as a test.

Retirement

The ALRVs have been considerably less reliable than the CLRVs and are being phased out first. The ALRVs were expected to retire from 2014 to 2015 as the new low floor streetcars entered service.[2] The first to retire was 4231 in mid 2014. It was stripped of parts for the other ALRVs still in service. After sitting for a period of time at Hillcrest, the car was sent to scrap in May 2015.

Other ALRVs deemed impractical to repair or overhaul followed. As of February 2019, 42 ALRVs have been retired.

Life extension

As deliveries of the new streetcars fell behind schedule, the TTC considered extending the lives of the ALRVs to make up for the shortfall. The TTC decided to overhaul 30 of the 52 ALRVs for continued service with an option for another 10 depending on funding. The remaining 12 would be parted out for useful parts and scrapped. The first car to be refurbished (4217) was outshopped in October 2015.

The refurbished cars had work done to the body which included corrosion repairs and a new coat of paint. The subfloor was replaced and covered by the same flooring that is used in the refurbished SRT cars. Seats received new inserts, which remain padded. The bogies and motors were rebuilt along with the cars' control system—though the TTC had looked into retrofitting the ALRVs with more up to date IGBT transistors.

By the spring of 2018, 18 ALRVs were refurbished. It should be noted that one car (4239) was involved in a collision shortly after refurbishment and sustained damage serious enough to warrant its retirement. The TTC elected to end the refurbishment program at 20 cars rather than 30 after reliability failed to improve. The final two cars outshopped from the refurbishment programme were 4207 in June, and 4221 in August 2018.